Pollock. Donald Wigal
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main character in Benton’s sketch for The Poker Party scene from the play as being those of the young Pollock[21]. The play has had several revivals, including the version performed in February 2005, again on Broadway.
After the wife of Pollock’s friend, Tony Smith, left him and went to Europe with the playwright Tennessee Williams in 1950, the lonely Smith spent even more time at the Pollock house. Tennessee was often seen on his bicycle going to and from the Pollock house. Williams’ play, The Rose Tattoo, and his novel, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, both critical successes, were released that year.
In 1913, Freud’s Totem and Taboo was published. In Paris, Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps premiered. The pioneering Armory Show in Manhattan shocked the art world with seminal examples of post-impressionism and cubism.
Number 1, 1949, 1949. Enamel and metallic paint on canvas, 160 × 259.1 cm, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Rita and Taft Schreiber Collection.
White Light, 1954. Oil, enamel and aluminium paint on canvas, 122.4 × 96.9 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
The Advent of Abstract Expressionism
“I think they (laymen) should not look for, but look passively – and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for.”[22]
During Pollock’s pre-teenage years, culture shocks (such as those coming from Freud, Stravinsky, and Dada) seemed to be preparing the world for him. Ryder and other predecessors died in 1917. They were yet to be admired by the young Pollock, while others whom he would look up to including Matisse and Picasso were already flourishing. The decade was also the advent of the basic documents of Jungian psychology which would influence the behaviour and work of the future artist intimately.
In 1913, post-impressionism and cubism were introduced to the New York art world at the Armory Show in Manhattan. The resulting culture shock paved the way for the jolt of seeing the brilliant results of Pollock’s creative gesture which were still several years away. The large mural-like paintings he would create would similarly revolutionise how the world experienced art. The shock in the galleries would be similar to the reaction in the concert hall that same year to Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps.
The visual art scene in Europe was preparing the world for a similar revolution in popular culture. The surprise would be that the ice would be broken in America – by a very unlikely cowboy-like rebel.
In 1914, Tennessee Williams was born. In 1915, Marcel Duchamp showed his first Dada-type paintings. In 1916 Matisse (1860–1954) showed The Three Sisters. In 1917, C. J. Jung published Psychology of the Unconscious. Picasso created Surrealist objects for a ballet. Albert P. Ryder (b.1847), who developed a technique of painting sweeping strokes with a palette knife, died. In 1918, Joan Miró had his first exhibits. In 1919, Hans Arp and Max Ernst showed collages. Arp explored Dadaism through sculpture and ‘chance’ forms. Ernst sought to express the subconscious. In 1920, C. J. Jung published Psychological Types. In Cologne, visitors were encouraged to destroy the paintings in a Dadaist exhibition. In 1921, Oskar Kokoschka exhibited expressionist paintings. Jazz dominated American popular culture.
The Early Influences
In 1921, Jackson’s brother Charles moved to Los Angeles to take a job at The Los Angeles Times. He also enrolled in the Otis Art Institute and sent home issues of the art magazine, The Dial. Over forty years later, on his deathbed, Sanford would thank Charles for sending copies of The Dial. “He said they meant a lot to him and Jack,” Charles remembered[23]. Later Charles also sent American Mercury (1924–33), the controversial literary magazine published by Henry Louis Mencken (1880–1956), who was a columnist on The Baltimore Sun, from 1906 until his death.
These publications brought visions of East Coast sophistication to the young artists. The magazines also included reproductions of contemporary European art the young Jackson probably saw as he watched the older boys read about the Paris School, which was the rage. His life-long interest – some biographers say his obsession – with Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) could have begun with seeing these magazines sent home by Charles.
In 1922, James Joyce’s Ulysses was published in Paris. Copies sent to the U. S. were destroyed by the U. S. post office. In 1923, the Dada movement ended. Picasso showed in Neoclassicism, Surrealism, and Expressionism. The New York Prohibition Enforcement Act was repealed. The tri-state conclave of the K. K. K. was held in Kokomo, Indiana, and was noted in a mural by Benton.
Pre-teen Art Education
In 1922, Jackson’s father moved the family again to another farm at Orland, California. The next year they moved to a farm near Phoenix, Arizona. Jackson attended the Monroe Elementary School there, but he stayed for only a few weeks. He visited Native American reservations with his brothers for the first time. Soon thereafter he was initiated into the traditions of Indian culture. He saw how the native artists integrated raw materials into their painting and other art. Their works were typically abstract or at least included abstract designs. Moreover, they worked on areas which were flat to the ground. Eighteen years later Pollock would visit an exhibit titled Indian Art of the United States at The Museum of Modern Art (henceforth referred to as MoMA) where he observed how Navajo artists made sand paintings on the floor. He would refer to both of those experiences ten years later when asked about the origins of his famous technique of gestural painting.
According to New York art reviewer Mark Stevens, a teacher enjoyed asking students what the best abstract art ever made in America was. They would predictably reply, “Pollock.” However, the teacher would correct them, noting, “You forgot the Navajo women.” The teacher was, as Stevens points out, referring to the Indian weavings they did, creating rugs “…as visually powerful as a modernist painting.” (103)
Untitled, 1944. Gouache, ink and wash on paper, 57.1 × 77.8 cm, Private collection.
Untitled (Woman), 1935–1938. Oil on fiberboard, 35.8 × 26.6 cm, Nagashima Museum, Kagoshima City, Japan.
Untitled (Naked Man with a Knife), c.1938–1940. Oil on canvas, 127 × 91.4 cm, Tate Gallery, London.
T.P.’s Boat in Menemsha Pond, c.1934. Oil on metal, 11.7 × 16.2 cm, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain.
Going West, 1934–1935. Oil on gesso on fibreboard, 38.3 × 52.7 cm, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington.
In 1924, Picasso was in an abstract period. Piet Mondrian advocated a ‘peripheric’ view, lacking a central point of focus.
Uprooted Again
“I’m very representational some of the time, and a little all of the time. But when you’re painting out of your unconscious, figures are bound to emerge. We’re all of us influenced by Freud, I guess. I’ve been a Jungian for a long time.”[24]
The decentralised art of Mondrian, receiving attention in the mid-1920s, has been described as presenting “…a grid-based city without a distinct center or downtown.”[25] He was reflecting the unsettled
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interview for a Sag Harbor radio station in the Fall of 1950; Cf. O’Connor (77) Pages 79–81
Naifeh. Page 796
to Selden Rodman, 1956
Stephen Little. Isms. (Universe, 2004) Page 117.